ASSORTMENT: Mothers of Myth

An assortment is when I take shorter pieces of worldbulilding, usually responses to prompts, and collect them in one post.

What’s in the buried tome?

About a year ago some of our boys were digging in the sand near the city. I was there too. We didn’t know what we were about to find. At first it just looked like a bunch of torn paper. We figured, it used to be some kind of book before the war. The colors were all washed out but the images were somewhat recognizable. It had peeps on ’em. Naked peeps. We hadn’t seen anything like that before.

Not that we didn’t know what naked folk looked like, it’s just, they looked different. They had these chest bumps and smooth. They also had no peeners. Yet, everyone I knew had one of dem peeners. Small for the lil’ ones, big for the ol’ ones.

We brought the book to Ol’ Bick. He said he needed some time to study the book and sent all of us out of his tent. He didn’t come out till night. At the campfire he said that this book was not the only one out there. He said that the next morning we will go back to the city and look for more of these.

Later that night I asked him about the people in the books, as he lived before the war. He called’em “women”. He said half the boys back then looked like that. You needed’em to make more boys. But half of those boys were also women. It’s weird. You also had to use your peener for making new boys. We only have the clone machine for that.

She stands at the height of half a dozen men

The Godwomb of the forest tribes is a female giant, revered as a living deity. She stands at the height of half a dozen men. Her skin green, her hips wide and her appetite boundless. She is the only woman in the whole forest, and all men, living in the forest, belong to her. All children in the forest are born from the Godwomb, but girls are eaten by the goddess immediately after birth.

Only the strongest and smartest men may impregnate the Godwomb. There are numerous tales about men tricking, charming fighting the Godwomb to earn the right to procreate. Or stories about outsiders, lost in the woods, forced to lay with the goddess.

Thanks to giants’ unique biology, all children, fathered by a human, are born human. As she is the only giant in the forest, the Godwomb’s children are all human. These pregnancies usually last 3-4 months, producing 5-6 children.

The Roasted Boar

The Roasted Boar is an inn in the middle of a thick forest, somewhere along a busy trade route. Every day at least one boar is roasted here. It’s been like this for a long time. The surrounding woods are teeming with game so the hunters living here never have a bad hunt. Whoever offers their kill to the inn gets the beast’s weight in mead to drink for that night.

The inn is run by old Gunmar and his family. His oldest daughter, the beautiful Elma is someone a lot of man would like to marry. Gunmar tells everyone the same thing. Whoever can bring an animal that weighs more than him, his wife and his five children, will earn his daughter’s hand in marriage. No man could beat the challenge so far. What’s even more concerning, there’s been sightings of a dire bear in the woods recently…

Gunmar is a beast of a man. What if it’s him in a bear pelt, trying to dispose of a particularly skilled hunter? I mean, Elma has seen thirty springs already. Maybe Gunter just doesn’t want to let her daughter go. That’s the only thing that remained from her first wife. A woman who turned out to be an immortal monster. One of those fey creatures. That would explain why Elma still looks so youthful, childlike even, in her thirties.

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Technopolis

The human brain is the most advanced computer available. Some of the inputs and outputs have been figured out but most of the inner workings of the organ still remain a mystery…

The City

Technopolis is a vertical city. Everything is painted an oppressive shade of red. Bridges and platforms poke out everywhere, making the city look almost organic, like the veins and arteries of a giant. The sky is overcast with a milky haze. The tall buildings slowly fade to pink and then disappear inside the mist.

After Life

The Grey Tax, is due to be paid after death. For a life of relative ease, without scarcity, one has to give up their brain to the city. The brain of a dead individual is quickly taken out and is put into a silicone tomb that provides it with nutrients and with data to process.

These undead brain-slaves are not as bright as living humans but they are perfect for the repetitive everyday tasks that keep the city running. These brains would probably degrade after 10-20 years.

The Residents

Frail, pale creatures, tall and lean. Their attention-deficit eyes constantly craving for augmented reality. Their atrophied bodies are tucked in restrictive clothes with exoskeletal inlays. Lots of unwieldy headpieces, fused with cranial implants. Tattoos of QR-codes stand in for complex designs that only come to life in Augmented Reality.

Tecnomancers

Technomancers are the masters of melding machines and life together. They form the upper class of Technopolis.

At the top is the Glitch Council. Glitches are what remain of the founders of the city, powerful technomancers, who willingly abandoned life in order to oversee Technopolis. Their nervous systems are completely fused with the vital systems of the city.

Reality

Reality in Technopolis is either augmented or fully virtual. Augmented Reality is reality digested by the brain-slaves and fed back to the brains of the residents. The soothing blue-green of the AR overlay sharply contrasts the bold red of the cityscape.

Virtual Reality is like an addictive spiritworld, generated from the dreams of the deceased. Many spend all their lives in this alternate world, far from the tyranny of the Glitch Council.

WITCHMIND

Withcmind is contacted by eating the brain tissue of a former witch. It is a neurological condition, a disease that turns one’s brain into a black, spongy substance. Those who partake in this unique form of cannibalism have their own brains change, along with their perceptions. The infinite secrets of the universe unveil right before their eyes.

The weak willed quickly go mad. Their minds are crushed under the unending heft. They succumb to shakes and start foaming at the mouth. Death takes them not long after. The lucky few, however, can accept the infinite vastness of the universe. The breadth of this knowledge is so enormous, though, that it’s unfathomable to mortal minds and is accompanied by a constant headache. Due to the pain, witches are unable to sleep, forever doomed to contemplate the chaotic mysteries of the universe.

The intimate knowledge of the unknowable lets a witch tap into the limitless possibilities that are hidden from mortal eyes.

For a witch, space-time unfolds, allowing a peek into distant places and events. A prophecy of this nature is worth a lot, even if it’s incomprehensible to a mortal. In many cultures witches serve as spiritual guides and fortune tellers.

Witchmind lets one discover secret passages, hidden in the cosmic folds, and visit times eons and worlds lightyears away. This unique ability allowed the human race to spread throughout the cosmos.

An aware mind reigns over all matter. The fingers of a witch’s hand press on reality with an infinite weight. This lets a witch manifest her chaotic thoughts, twisting and shaping the physical world around her.

The first witch manifested her wondrous abilities naturally. When she died, her disciples opened her skull and consumed her brain to partake in her wisdom.

Witchmind might have an eldritch purpose, hinting at a bigger force. It might have been engineered by someone. Or it might be a way to communicate with a cosmic entity.

Gods among the Stars

The Universe is old and truly massive. In this chaotic place, there is only one constant. The Great Evolution.

The Great Evolution is a continuous increase in systemic complexity. This increase is rapid at first but it gradually slows down. When a system has reached its limit, a singularity can occur. These singularities create a new system, an additional layer of complexity, built on the previous ones. In this way, the Great Evolution is a succession of singularities. Mere atoms reform into corporeal gods in the matter of eons.

A Timeline of Singularities

1. The conception of the Universe and the physical laws governing it. First only subatomic particles, then matter formed and later stars and planets. In – hypothetical – other universes the laws of physics might be completely different. Some might not even contain the Great Evolution.
2. Inorganic matter develops into organic compounds and, eventually, living organisms. From single cells to towering giants, life assumes countless forms to fill a wide range of niches. This has happened and is still happening on millions of planets, all over the Universe.
3. Simple lifeforms, acting on their instincts, slowly evolve sapience. Sapient entities all lust to convert their environment into technology. From primitive stone tools to the space faring vessels of advanced civilizations, technology grows more and more complex.
4. Over billions of years, a sapient entity refines a core ideal and completes the Great Evolution. This core ideal is the most important part of the sapient’s legacy, and will serve as a foundation for a new god. These gods work to reorganize the universe in the shape of their core ideals. They can reform whole solar systems on a whim and seed a galaxy’s worth of planets with primitive life.

Through their hosts, their physical forms, gods are anchored to reality. These physical forms vary a great deal between gods. With the destruction of their hosts, gods weaken and can even die.

A god’s domain is a piece of the universe, physical and metaphysical, ruled and shaped to fit an ideal. Throughout the universe, several gods work to expand the scope of their domains.

Gods that interact with lesser sapients are often worshipped and grouped into pantheons. In reality, most gods like to operate individually, as other gods do not share their core ideal.

Significant Gods

Tyrant

The Tyrant was made to rule the whole universe. Its hosts are the void princes, golden spheres of titanic sizes. These units serve bureaucratic as well as military purposes and are often found orbiting major planets like golden moons. As a true conqueror, the Tyrant has a vast army, consisting of many void princes and loyal forces of advanced civilizations.

Archivist

The originators of the Archivist wanted to accumulate and preserve knowledge. The god has countless drones patrolling every corner of the universe, recording information. The collected data is then sent to numerous, well hidden, planet-sized archives around the universe. The Archivist often sells information, preferring to grow its sphere of influence in peaceful ways.

Teacher

The Teacher seeks to uplift promising sapient civilizations and guide them to achieve godhood. There are millions of scholars and scientists from hundreds of species learning in the halls of the Teacher. Although it has a noble purpose, The Preacher, having inherited the arrogance of its originators, heavily encourages its own worship. Even some of its children, gods of its own making worship it. The children are diverse in shape and somewhat in their core ideal so infighting is common in their ranks.

Mother

In an idyllic longing for a long lost age, the originators of the Mother wanted to return to a simpler life. They created a god that would terraform other planets and seed them with their old biological forms as well as other flora and fauna native to their home planet. On these planets the originator species can live on in an unchanged, primitive form. This, of course, sometimes comes with destroying life already present on a planet. The god’s hosts are mostly smaller seeder units, wombs, but it’s said to have a central host in a hollow planet somewhere, a broodmother. This is where most of the genetic tweaking happens before implanting a womb with genetic material suited for the particular mission.

Cloak and Dagger

The Cloak and Dagger is a twin god, although, even other gods fail to link the two entities. The Cloak claims itself to be the protector of the weak. Driven by an old grudge, it runs military and political campaigns to halt the progress of other gods in the universe. In the background, however, lurks an other entity. The Dagger works from the shadows and can disable gods by striking at the most vital points. The Cloak likes to appear in the shape of gods and legendary heroes, revered by lesser sapients. The Dagger doesn’t have any particular host associated with it.

Audience

For the Audience, the entire universe is a stage. It’s originators wanted to be eternally entertained, even to the detriment of others. The god itself is a disperse network of billions of minds, always scheming new ways to trick others. Agents of the Audience have infiltrated most other gods’ domains.

Flood

The Flood‘s originators believed that the only way to truly unite the universe was to transform it all into a single entity. The Flood is made up of innumerable amounts of nanites, endlessly reforming, multiplying and consuming everything around them. It is possibly the oldest of the gods. Or it might have destroyed all others that had existed before.

ｈｅｌｌｏｗｏｒｌｄ

Hey there! This is the first post on ｌｏｗｅｒｃａｓｅｇｏｄ, my worldbuilding blog.

Nothing to see here just yet but in a couple days I’ll start posting. Right now I’m making sure that the blog looks right and has the vibes that I’m looking for. In the meantime, look to your right and check out the blogs I frequent.